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Big mortgages and high rents be damned. British Columbians are shopping their hearts out. The Business Council of B.C. highlighted the shopping spree recently, noting the total value of annual retail sales in B.C. has surpassed the $70-billion mark, reflecting a 6.8-per-cent surge last year.

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Canada’s housing agency, looking for new methods to track foreign ownership in the country’s soaring real estate markets, may tap money laundering police and classify international university students as foreign buyers, according to internal documents.

Re: Catholic hospitals wrestle with assisted death, Feb 26
You don’t need Catholic hospitals to kill people. If society really wants killing centres, it should ask government to build them, not coerce institutions that want no part of it.

We would like to draw attention to a major regulatory requirement for Site C, which was outlined in BC Hydro’s Project Definitions Consultation Discussion Guide of Oct/Nov. 2008. The following two points are a direct quotation from that guide.

In recent years, critics have exercised considerable license in arguing against development of Canadian natural resources, often on the curious premise that it would be bad for our economy. Considering all the turmoil on global energy markets, we thought it would be timely to review some of the arguments that have been used to oppose oil pipeline development in Canada.

While Canadian investors are being battered in the stock market, at least one business academic is skeptical about claims the rise of American interest rates and China's falling demand for Canadian resources are at the root of investors' woes.

The place that time forgot is finding the good times a distant memory. Just a year after reporting a booming business, companies on this 13-square-kilometre American peninsula south of Tsawwassen are taking a nosedive along with the value of the Canadian dollar.

The governor of the Bank of Canada says the country's "flexible exchange rate" helps the economy adapt to the impact of low oil prices. Stephen Poloz says Canada will have to simply ride out the declining price of oil.

More people renting rather than buying. More buying activity in suburban areas beyond Vancouver. More foreign investment. These are among the key trends real estate experts are anticipating in the coming year for a property market that continues to grow ever-more expensive.

Clint Landrock had been looking for the next big thing in nanotechnology and he found it in Costa Rica, on the wings of a bird-sized Central American butterfly. He had been pursuing ideas for organic solar cells, but he was soon frustrated by a lack of useful ideas in the scientific literature and turned his attention to nanostructures in the animal world.

If you are keeping to a budget for your main holiday meal, turkey remains your best choice for a protein. The price of a traditional Christmas turkey is down 10 per cent from last year, 33 per cent since 2004 and a whopping 69 per cent since 1979.

Canadians may owe almost $1.2 trillion to mortgage lenders, but most homeowners are nonetheless in good shape to handle it. Most have also seen the value of their real estate assets grow faster — in Metro Vancouver, probably much faster — than their financial obligations. But this doesn’t mean all are sitting pretty. In fact, a significant minority are at risk of going under if — or when — interest rates rise.

Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz says the central bank would consider pushing its interest rate below zero if the country ever suffered another major economic shock. But Poloz stresses the bank isn't planning to do that anytime soon.

A recent Economist magazine survey of 26 housing markets around the world shows that Canada has the highest housing prices in relation to its residential rental rates. The survey, according to the Business Council of B.C., suggests that “renting may provide more short-term value in the Canadian market”.

Vancouverites take their city personally, and do not like change. Which has made Brian Jackson’s job something of a tightrope act. Jackson, who is retiring today after 3-1/2 years as Vancouver’s chief planner, says people here are different from residents of other U.S. and Canadian cities where he has worked — Los Angeles; Clark County, Nevada; Toronto; Richmond.

An item the other day about how counterfeit bills have been turning up displaying the face of the wrong prime minister reminded me of the call for a few female faces to adorn our bank notes. Two years ago, B.C.-based historian and writer Merna Forster, author of 100 Canadian Heroines and 100 More Canadian Heroines, launched a campaign on the idea’s behalf.

Canada’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are among the highest in the world. Our national emissions have been increasing steadily, with the exception of the global recession from 2008 to 2010. Absent significant policy change, Canada’s emissions are projected to continue to rise.

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